Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (Illusions 1)

"One more step and there will be blood, all right. Mister, you touch me and you die. . ." I wouldn't have killed him, but I did want to tie him up, at least, before we talked much more.

He must have believed me, for he stopped and sighed. He turned to Shimoda. "You have made your point?"

"I think so. Thank you."

The vampire looked up at me and smiled, completely at ease, enjoying himself hugely, an actor on stage when the show is over. "I won't drink your blood, Richard," he said in perfect friendly English, no accent at all. As I watched he faded as though he was turning out his own light . . . in five seconds he had disappeared.

"Shimoda sat down again by the fire. "Am I ever glad you don't mean what you

say!"

I was still trembling with adrenaline, ready for my fight with a monster. "Don, I'm not sure I'm built for this. Maybe you'd better tell me what's going on. Like, for instance, what . . . was that?"

"Dot was a wompire from Tronsylwania " he said in words thicker than the creature's own "Or to be more precise, dot was a thought-form of a wompire from Tronsylwania. If you ever want to make a point, you think somebody isn't listening, whip 'em up a little thought-form to demonstrate what you mean. Do you think I overdid him, with the cape and the fangs and the accent like that? Was he too scary for you?"

"The cape was first class, Don. But that was the most stereotyped, outlandish . . . I wasn't scared at all."

He sighed. "Oh well. But you got the point, at least, and that's what matters."

"What point?"

"Richard, in being so fierce toward my vampire, you were doing what you wanted to do, even though you thought it was going to hurt somebody else. He even told you he'd be hurt if. . ."

"He was going to suck my blood!"

"Which is what we do to anyone when we tell them we'll be hurt if they don't live our way. "

I was quiet for a long time, thinking about that. I had always believed that we are free to do as we please only if we don't hurt another, and this didn't fit. There was something missing.

"The thing that puzzles you," he said, "is an accepted saying that happens to be impossible. The phrase is hurt somebody else. We choose, ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt, no matter what. Us who decides. Nobody else. My vampire told you he'd be hurt if you didn't let him? That's his decision to be hurt, that's his choice. What you do about it is your decision, your choice: give him blood; ignore him; tie him up; drive a stake of holly through his heart. If he doesn't want the holly stake, he's free to resist, in whatever way he wants. It goes on and on, choices, choices."

"When you look at it that way . . ."

"Listen " he said, "it's important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do."

14

Every person,

all the events of your life

are there because you have

drawn them there.

What you choose

to do with them is

up to you.

"Don't you get lonely, Don?" It was at the cafe in Ryerson, Ohio, that it occurred to me to ask him.

"I'm surprised you'd . . ."

"Sh " I said "I haven't finished my question. Don't you ever get just a little lonely?

"What you think as ..."